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Altered inhibitory control and increased sensitivity to cross-modal interference in tinnitus during auditory and
Rodrigo Araneda1, Anne G De Volder1, Naïma Deggouj2
1Institute of Neuroscience (IoNS), Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
Plos One
|March 13, 2015
Summary
Tinnitus participants show impaired inhibitory control and heightened sensitivity to cross-modal interference, particularly with tinnitus-matched sounds. These findings suggest executive function deficits contribute to tinnitus perception and maintenance.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Audiology
Background:
- Tinnitus, the perception of sound without external stimulus, involves brain alterations beyond auditory areas, including the prefrontal cortex.
- The precise pathophysiology of tinnitus remains incompletely understood, necessitating further investigation into cognitive and neural mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate target detection speed and inhibitory control in tinnitus participants (TP) compared to control subjects (CS).
- To assess TP's sensitivity to cross-modal interference in auditory and visual go/no-go tasks.
- To explore the role of executive function deficits in tinnitus.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Auditory and visual go/no-go tasks in unimodal and bimodal conditions, assessing target detection and inhibitory control.
- Experiment 2: Cross-modal interference tasks using auditory and visual go/no-go paradigms with irrelevant pre-stimuli in the untested modality.
- Performance metrics included response times and false alarm rates, with specific attention to sound frequency effects.
Main Results:
- TP exhibited slower response times and higher false alarm rates than CS across all tested conditions.
- TP did not show the expected performance gain in bimodal tasks when tinnitus-matched frequencies were targets, unlike CS.
- TP demonstrated heightened sensitivity to cross-modal interference, especially when tinnitus-matched auditory stimuli acted as pre-stimuli.
Conclusions:
- Inhibitory control is significantly altered in individuals with tinnitus.
- Tinnitus participants display abnormal sensitivity to cross-modal interference, indicating difficulty in ignoring irrelevant stimuli.
- Executive function deficits are implicated in the perception and persistence of tinnitus, with tinnitus-like auditory stimulation exacerbating cognitive processing difficulties.
